Bring on the tinfoil hats....

Is it something that I'm just beginning to notice or has there really been a big increase in the number of 'tinfoil hat' nutcases lately?

I'm thinking of the recent increase in the number of people in places of intellectual power (ie, university instructors) whom are saying that the 2001-09-11 attack was entirely a grand conspiracy involving high-ranking people in the USA's federal government and not the actions of a small group of Islamic hotheads.

One doesn't have to wear a tinfoil hat to believe that W took advantage of 9-11 to start a war that had among its multiple causes many of the factors Jeff dismisses so snidely. The public record shows that PNAC was advocating a war in Iraq since the 1980s, the Downing Street Memo show that prominent administration officials explicitly saw 9-11 as an opportunity. And, it's not like prominent members of the Administriation have not had a long history of somewhat nefarious activities. John "Nun Muderer" Negroponte, for example.

Of course, the public record is becoming more and more circumscribed. W has refused to release Reagan Adminsitration papers that might embarras key members of his Administration (in violation of the law, I might add). Those who state boldly that we should not always talk about Vietnam forget that many of the same players are still involved.

Is it something that I'm just beginning to notice or has there really been a big increase in the number of 'tinfoil hat' nutcases lately?
I'm thinking of the recent increase in the number of people in places of intellectual power (ie, university instructors) whom are saying that the 2001-09-11 attack was entirely a grand conspiracy involving high-ranking people in the USA's federal government and not the actions of a small group of Islamic hotheads.

Originally posted by Jeff

Didnt you know that Dubya planned the whole thing. So we could finish his Daddy's war, get cheap oil (thus sell gas for $0.25/gal), and get a nice phatty contract for Dick and his boys at Haliburton?

So you guys are saying these statements are not true? Just wanna make sure.

You get all squeezed up inside/Like the days were carved in stone/You get all wired up inside/And it's bad to be alone

You can go out, you can take a ride/And when you get out on your own/You get all smoothed out inside/And it's good to be alone
-Peart

There will always be conspiracy theorists. Nothing can be as simple as they seem, so they argue. Kennedy was too great a man to be cut down by a miserable loser like Oswald, so the Mafia or the Cubans had to have put him up to it. Marilyn Monroe had to have been killed by the Kennedys. The Tri-lateral Commission and the Jews control everything. And so on.

These people usually have a personal agenda of their own. To sell books. To sell themselves for speeches, or just to get someone to listen to their lunatic rants.

Actually I like hearing some of the stuff. Some of it is imaginative, and no less implausible than, say, the belief that God sent his only begotten son to Earth to die on the cross for our sins. Whose execution was of course a conspiracy by the Jews!

"I am very good at reading women, but I get into trouble for using the Braille method."

Is it something that I'm just beginning to notice or has there really been a big increase in the number of 'tinfoil hat' nutcases lately?

I'm thinking of the recent increase in the number of people in places of intellectual power (ie, university instructors) whom are saying that the 2001-09-11 attack was entirely a grand conspiracy involving high-ranking people in the USA's federal government and not the actions of a small group of Islamic hotheads.

Any thoughts?

Mike

I disagree. Sure there are some crazy folks out there but to me it doesn't seem like there are alot of people who really believe that that are worth mentioning.

Everyone knows where I stand on these issues and the theories so I am not going to say anything other than this.

Some people need to stop B****ing about Bush and the War.

"A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defense of custom. Time makes more converts than reason." - Thomas Paine Common Sense.

"Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country."

versus YOUR next parrotting of Ann Coulter or Michael Savage? Are WE to be rounded up in the "Containment Centers," Jeff? For our own good? One more terrorist attack, and the brave United States will fall all over itself to sign away any remaining constitutional liberties. At least, you realistic, manly conservatives will. Remind me again why liberals are the weak ones? "Save me, President Bush."

The Whig Party...oops, I mean the Democratic Party, is almost 100% uninterested in touching any of the key issues facing the United States. Hillary? Come on. Joe Biden? Give me a break. Obama, the latest "hero"? Another meek moderate who can't even respond to the attacks from the far right.

Uh... That's not a wise strategy pal... if the US uses up all of their own reserves in non critical times like now... when it becomes scarce you'll have to be begging for it to producing nations... so that's why anybody with half a brain would buy foreign oil before using up their own...

Now, not all oil in the US comes from the middle east.. most oil used for heating in the US comes from Venezuela... but the oil for cars does come from middle east.

Now onto the conspiracy theories about 9-11... I've heard many... fell for a few (the missile against the pentagon sounded somewhat plausible if you forget the physics involved in crashing a hollow metal tube(with wings of course) at high speeds loaded with fuel against a reinforced concrete wall)
The US government couldn't have done it... although it did a very lousy job preventing it.

One of the most stupid theories I've seen is the one saying that the WTC was a demolition job.. (i.e. they loaded it with explosives and demolished it....) but calculating and planning a controlled demolition is way complicated and evident.

Why worry about conspiracies when there is so much corruption out in the open?

The problem is, too much of what is "in the open" is increasingly hidden under the rubric of "National Security." Like the entire body of Reagan Presidential papers, hidden by special Executive Order of the President.

Uh... That's not a wise strategy pal... if the US uses up all of their own reserves in non critical times like now... when it becomes scarce you'll have to be begging for it to producing nations... so that's why anybody with half a brain would buy foreign oil before using up their own...

We havent even begun pulling the stuff out of AL, pal. I dont know about you, pal, but to me it makes more sense to get the stuff from our own soil, rahter than have to get it from rogue nations in the Middle East. But hey, what do I know, I only have 1/4 a brain.

Forget oil! Why isn't anybody taking the challenge to build new, renewable energy industries? Everytime there's a hiccup, there's money to be made. W's war will eventually end and the taps will open again and Ford will make bigger Expescursions. Why isn't anybody tapping the biodiesel keg or similar technology now while there's a market? Taking advantage of opportunities used to be a stereotypical American trait. Did we lose it when we started flushing our freedoms in the name of "security?"

But what is the net energy produced by Kool-Aid after the embedded costs of producing the lovely pink powder?

More seriously, I don't think there is a "solution" that will enable 300 million people to live like consumer society middle class Americans today. We'll be extremely lucky to have enough energy to run society at the level of 1890, or maybe even 1790. If not 1090